Ex Deus

The Art of Exodus

The image came through as a text message, but the text underneath read, “ExDeus.” I thought to myself, “Did Bezalel (aka my son David) skip spelling class? Can he not spell Exodus?” I texted him back with a correction: E X O D U S.

He replied, “Dad, it’s two words, Ex Deus. It’s Latin. It means ‘From God’.”

It turns out I wasn’t taking David to spelling class. Bezalel was taking me to Latin class. Wow.

Ex Deus!

From God!

It is the perfect caption for the story of Exodus isn’t it?

Upon David’s arrival in Gillett, a tiny map-dot in the wilderness of Arkansas, I commissioned him to do an original artwork on Exodus. I left it broad and with no coaching, other than my voluminous writings (which he may or may not have been reading).

He went to work. He chose for his medium, oil pastel on canvas. (dimensions) Here’s a bit of the journey of the piece.

That’s David’s cat, “Patchy” wondering what’s next?

Ex Deux in early wilderness phase. I love how he drew the path even before he sketched in the wild. And I love how he began with the cloud, signifying the transcendent presence of God. . . Ex Deus.

We are in the mist of trying to purchase an old abandoned hardware store at 200 West Main Street in our little town of Gillett, Arkansas. You can get a glimpse of it in the short video above. We call the place, “The Seed House.” We are calling our new venture, “The Daily Seed Company.” Our vision is simple: “Sow Much Good!” It will be part studio, part art gallery, part house of prayer, part community center. All those parts and more we pray will add up to “a planting of the Lord for the display of his splendor” (see Isaiah 61). We are praying for a Rural Renaissance to rise up from the ruins.

That’s him, John David Walt, III, Gillett’s newest public artist, sifting glory from the rubble and imagining what could be through what once was.

One afternoon David had the idea of going out to the edge of town and seeing if the path in the painting in process might match up to the centerlines of the highway and the cloud with the sky. You get the point. Here’s the finished work:

I wonder what you “behold” here. There is so much going on; so much coming Ex Deus—From God.

I asked David for an “Artists Statement” on Ex Deus. He’s working on it. In the meantime, here’s a “Dad’s Statement” through the lens of my message on Sunday in which we consecrated the piece in our morning worship service at the Gillett Methodist Church. If you care to see the whole message it can be found here.

Finally, here’s another glimpse of the piece from inside The Seed House.

We would love for a print of this painting to find its way into your home. It will serve as a living reminder of our pilgrimage through Exodus together and it will help us “Sow Much Good” with the Daily Seed Company.

I wrote the following in my journal this morning:

“A work of art is a seed planted in the heart of a home—transforming a wall into a window—opening a new world to behold.”

We are planning a limited edition signed print run to ship in early January. If you would like more information on the print and such let us know here.